In the age of “pics or it didn’t happen,” our narratives exist in two parallel spheres: the real life, and the online. The two sometimes converge (#nofilter) and sometimes remain separate (un-tag that unflattering picture, please). Unlike the real self, aspects of the online self can be edited, highlighted and deleted. But memories can also be tweaked and blocked. So to which self do we turn for an accurate version of our personal histories?
The other day, my history professor told the class, “all history is revisionist history,” as in: There is no truly objective record of events. When it comes to my online record, I am the guiltiest of revisionists. I have hidden profile pictures from eighth grade taken in the sepia effect on Photo Booth (oy vey, the braces!), edited captions deemed not witty enough, and deleted tweets I wrote before I understood how hashtags worked. In other words, I’ve revised parts of my online history to more cohesively reflect my current tastes and narrative down here in real life. (Is it working?!)
Fortunately, there is a growing sub-genre of acceptable-for-social-media content that celebrates embarrassing histories. Facebook has created a feature called On This Day, which, according to the Facebook help center, automatically “brings you memories to look back on from that particular day in your Facebook history.” If the old picture or status is funny enough, people share it with the rest of their friends. The help center’s next section is an instructional on “How do I share a memory?”
Back in the day, we didn’t need a five-step plan or special prompting. We just recalled a relevant story and then talked about it. But why bother remembering your own personal history when Facebook can do it for you?
Perhaps our online histories reveal more truth than our real memories would allow us to admit. In social media-fueled scandals, Twitter often provides the most solid evidence. New York Congressperson Anthony Weiner infamously tweeted an inappropriate photo of himself to a college student and then lied about it. “Weinergate,” as the media called it, cost the representative his career, and showed the rest of us that when human memory conveniently fails, online history, deleted or not, can remember. Tweets are forever.
The longevity of online personal history is a shame considering we often say things we don’t mean in the heat of the moment. More dangerously, in the bendy, all-access channels of online forums, blogs and social media, individuals can be unfairly slandered or misrepresented. Among the web’s most deplorable examples is a blog called Canary Mission, which aims to blacklist college activists and close off future job opportunities. Online history, just like real history, can be twisted and misused in the wrong hands — only worse, because even after lawsuits are won and names cleared, the page will always be archived and findable somehow.
This archiving also leaves us with a more limited space to change our views or narratives. As I write this column, for example, I know it will be part of my online personal history forever. I have the immense benefit of authoring that which will be attached to my name (unlike Canary Mission), yet I still worry I will disagree with what I’m writing twenty years down the road and wish I had taken a few deep breaths before hitting “submit.” That, I suppose, is the point of history—to show us how and when we changed. Hopefully I will think differently in 20 years than I do now, and this (and all other forms of social media and Internet activity) will be my witness.
When we tweet, blog and post on Facebook, we gradually plant a dynamic time capsule of our own histories. Its permanence is intimidating but reassuring. When our real-life selves would like to think we’ve always been the way we are, our online selves will remind us: You were once different. We are always changing, and that’s where our consistency lies.
Contact Madeleine Kyung-Hee Chang at madkc95 ‘at’ stanford.edu.